The Real Problem with Parsers

[Viridiana]

I then immediately qualified that with "Meaning no medical issues restricting them or anything like that?" You either missed that or chose to ignore it intentionally, neither of which does you any favours.

So people with medical issues are automatically incapable of improving. Again, that's just repeating what you said. I don't think it's gonna win you any friends to say that, though. I mean, I tried giving you the benefit ouf the doubt, but you've now doubled down on this idea.

Which will be irrelevant to anybody who gets repeatedly kicked from content for not doing enough DPS because they won't be able to get that gear. And, in fact, the problem will get comparatively worse as the people who DO get the higher end gear will increase their expectations of DPS to match because the higher gear increases everybody's. If someone doesn't accept 500 DPS now, they're not going to accept 550 DPS at i220.

Because it requires Eso gear to get Eso, right? Especially once the new tomestones come out and Eso gets moved to uncapped?

Then scroll back and look at what you said? It seems pretty straightforward to me. You said that joining a group is entering a contract to be able to do enough tanking/healing/DPS to clear it. So then as long as you can clear it, they're holding up their side, right? Even if the dungeon takes another 20 minutes or even another hour, if the content gets cleared, they are holding up their side of the contract?

Maybe it was just your phrasing in your last post, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what you were saying. Rephrased here, though, yes, that's somewhat reasonable.

The problem with your thinking is that you think they owe you that. They don't. If I like to have my door locked because I'm afraid of people walking into my house and robbing me, I don't need to assert a rough estimate of how many people might rob me. Instead, the person trying to convince me to leave my door unlocked has to prove to me that I won't get robbed.

You don't need to assert a crime rate, because crime rates have already been studied and established. Defering to actual established set of data is reasonable. Bringing up hypothetical data that might prove your point and then asserting that your point is proven is not reasonable.

If they put parsers officially into the game, then in order to maintain their CURRENT state, they'd have to continue to take the stance that you're not allowed to bring anybody else's DPS up, which would, of course, defeat what everyone seems to want. And remember, if their stance right now is "We won't outright stop you from using them, but we don't want you bringing it up to anyone", why do you think people going "Oh yeah, we'd totally call people out" would help move them from that stance?

That's not their current stance at all. Their current stance is "you can use parsers, and you can talk about dps, but you can't mention dps numbers."

This goes back to the whole "estimate" thing. Why should they give you an estimate of how many people would call others out on their DPS when you have a thread full of people here wanting desperately to call people out on their DPS?

Because as it stands they're fear mongering. They're asserting that the players should be afraid of harassment without ever establishing that harassment is a product of parsing. And no, those of us saying that we wish we could call people out for their low DPS are not advocating harassment. As it stands, we're reluctant to give anyone advice no matter how badly they need it because this player base has an astonishing number of people who can't take criticism and will try to report you for saying they can't do their job.

Is it only one time? If so, clearly this isn't an important problem.

Seriously? Do you not understand hyperbole?

Didn't say that. Just that if you continue to make the conscious decision to not premake parties, that's your choice, not anybody else's.

Premaking all my parties is giving up on the enterprise of using DF. So that is actually what you're advocating.

If people abuse banks, banks create policies to crack down on abuse. They exercise their options. Your analogy works against you.

The analogy works just fine, because I've never heard of a bank saying "Well, guess we're never giving out a loan ever again!" Which is basically what I would be doing if I followed your advice and never stepped foot in DF again.

Except what I'm actually saying is that you have options and it's nobody's choice but your own to not use those options.

Use the option of not trusting anybody outside my inner circle. Got it. I think you'd make a grand conspiracy theorist, btw.

And some people are extremely averse to being spoken to in-game. What's your point?

That increasing the number of venues by which one can learn to be a better player is a good thing. Your point seems to be "People suck, so stop playing with them."

If you cleared it, you cleared it. Anything faster than that is obviously better, but not required.

I wish I could join all your groups just to drag them out until the boss is about to enrage. >_>

I'd consider it more under mechanics and teamwork since the DPS aren't the only ones that can use the cannons and DK.

Either the DPS are failing at cannons, in which case it's a DPS problem, or tanks and healers are on the cannons, in which case it's a very serious DPS problem. Again, not doing yourself any favors with this argument.

Sorry, how are these relevant to the state of the game now? Please try to keep your arguments centered on a time period that matters.

None of this argument has been limited to the current state of the game. Maybe in your head it has been, but I'm fairly sure no one else has been limiting their scope to only patch 3.07. If you really insist, though, how about groups failing at the DPS checks in Bismark and Ravana--sometimes in story mode, even. Or having seen the enrage in A1N. Because that's a thing that should be happening, right?

If the answer really is yes, that there are raid groups that clear, say, Savage content where everyone's on a PS3, then doesn't that mean that parsers aren't necessary for success? I mean, clearly those raid groups won't have a parser, but if they're clearing it, clearly they've figured out how to deal with that.

Voice chat isn't needed for success, either. Yet having and discussing voice chat doesn't get you banned, even though you can be harassed over voice chat. Having a chat pane isn't necessary to clear Savage either. Yet we have that even though it's been used for just tons and tons of harassment.

Then your story is not very good proof of much, is it?

Pardon me for not recording random Titan runs and keeping the video around for a year and a half to use as evidence in an argument. Guess you'll have to take solace in the fact that at least I'm not blindly asserting that my memory is perfect.

In my line of work, you learn that "This is what I specifically remember" doesn't have any reasonable bearing on the entirety of a situation. For example, if everybody's DPS was lower than it could be, then everyone contributed to it, not just the lowest person. Or you specifically remember that BECAUSE it was an obvious issue that stuck in your mind to look up while you tunnel visioned over other issues.

So, we can only assign blame to one person if everyone else is playing perfectly, then. That's what you're saying. You do know that it's possible to put primary responsibility on one person while still acknowledging that other people have contributed, right?

But let's say we have a party where everyone but one person truly is playing perfectly, and that one person is dragging the party down to the point that they can't complete the content. Can we call that person out? Current stance is that we can, but we aren't allowed to use numbers. Of course, without numbers just saying "You're bad" is pretty useless.

See above about doors being unlocked. I don't need evidence that someone will rob my house to know that leaving my door unlocked is a bad idea.

But you already have evidence that someone might rob your house. Seriously, there's a reason that when my parents' and grandparents' generations talk about the good ole days being better their first example tends to be that you didn't have to lock your door at night.

The difference, again, is the policy. Jerks can run parsers now, but they can't say anything. Adding in an official parser and maintaining the same policy that they can't say anything will not increase verbal harassment because they're still not allowed to say anything, but that defeats your purpose of wanting to be able to call people out on their DPS. Not adding in an official parser but rescinding the current policy about not talking about it will, clearly, increase the number of people calling others out on DPS.

I notice that you keep trying to make "call someone out on their DPS numbers" synonymous with "harass someone for their DPS." They aren't synonyms, and trying to use them as such is dishonest.

"Hey, I noticed that you're doing a couple hundred DPS less than you could be with that gear. I main that class and could offer advice if you want it."
"Dude, the DPS here sucks and we keep wiping. Just vote abandon so I don't have to take a 30 minute penalty."

Which of those is more constructive? Which one will get you banned under the current policy? Hint: Both questions have the same answer.

You, seemingly, and apparently most people here, are not just talking about adding a parser in. They want the ability to call people out on the DPS.

Yes, because without being able to tell people just what their DPS is numerically, you aren't going to get very far helping people. Again, "calling people out on their DPS numbers" is not the same as "harassing people over their DPS numbers." Oh, and, as an aside, we aren't allowed to discuss sensitive matters like people's performance in a dungeon through private messages, because SE is worried that allowing tells in dungeons will lead to harassment. Even though having to harass people in /p doesn't seem to dissuade people.

People who already use a parser but are arguing that they should add a parser are CLEARLY not concerned with adding the parser itself, but wanting the policy about not wanting people to call others out rescinded. So while it isn't the parser that will turn people into jerks, it's the rescinding of the policy that will open the door for them to be jerks.

Or, y'know, they're concerned about the disparity between PC capabilities and PS3/PS4 capabilities in a game that strives to have an even playing field between the three. And yes, pretty much everyone arguing in favor of parsers is arguing in favor of being able to discuss the numbers those parsers give us. Discussing those numbers does not automatically constitute harassment, though.

You're so wrong on two counts. I mean, first of all, you expect SE is capable of proving a hypothetical, which is a completely unrealistic expectation.

Gathering evidence for a hypothesis is an unrealistic expectation. My mind boggles that you would say that. Have you heard of this thing called the scientific method? I suspect you have, because you're about to argue that I should be using it; but I almost doubt it, because you're telling me that gathering evidence for a hypothesis is unrealistic.

Secondly, look around you. This thread alone makes it pretty clear that if they rescind the policy that you can't talk about someone's DPS, they're going to get an increase in people being called out,

This smear campaign you're running against the idea of using actual numbers is seriously troubling.

just from the number of people who've shared stories about "Oh, this person was crap but I had to bite my tongue because I couldn't say anything and it was infuriating". Those people are the EXACT people who prove SE's point.

A lot of us are saying "This person was absolute crap but I bit my tongue because even mentioning DPS obliquely leads to the possibility of a ban, regardless of whether I needed a parser in this case or not." We're asking to be able to say "Hey, your DPS is objectively less than the WHM's; do you need help with that?" or "I noticed the parser isn't showing you attacking the add at all, and the add is wiping us. Are you not noticing the add, or is my parser messing up?" or "Okay, the parser shows that you only have about 95% accuracy, so you should probably boost your Acc some."

Since you love real world analogies so much, when people want certain drugs to not be restricted by law because they're not really harmful, the onus is on them to prove that they're not really harmful. They're the ones trying to change a law with their argument, so it's their job to prove their argument. So it's your job to prove that they won't be proven completely right and that rescinding their policy won't result in an increase in people being called out and an increase in harassment reports.

If I were in a position to be even remotely able to prove it, I would. From where I'm standing, I would need the following information:

1) How many active PC users are there?
2) How many of them routinely parse?
3) How many of them say they would parse if parsing were okay?
4) How many tickets does SE get related to parsing?
5) How many tickets does SE get about harassment unrelated to parsing?
6) How many active PS3/PS4 players are there?
7) Assumption: How many people would change their behavior to a harassive one if parsing were okay?
8) Assumption: What percentage of harassment incidents go unreported?

I can't possibly get any of that information (aside from points 7 and 8) without breaking several laws in the process. I need to know how many active PC users there are and how many actively parse so that I can know what percentage of active parsers get reported for harassment related to parsing and what percentage of harassment that makes. Then I need to know how many new parsers would be added when an official parser became available so that I could assess how many people newly able (or willing, in the PC cases) to parse I could expect to harass people. Finally, I would need to make assumptions about behaviour change and about unreported cases. The former to try to more accurately assess the potential increase in workload, and the latter to try to more accurately assess the actual community the game has developed.

Needless to say, I have none of that information and can't get it without petitioning SE for numbers I don't think they'd be willing to share. Meanwhile SE has 1, 4, 5, and 6. They could get, if they wanted, 2 and 3. Either side would have to assume 7 and 8.